Thursday, 13 January 2011

Healthy Baked Vegetable With Broccoli & Cauliflower

Blogging has made me quite a passionate baker, whether it’s baking bread, cake or a vegetable, I surely get hooked. With winter hitting our bones in this part of India, cooking can be torturous at times especially when the tap water is at the freezing point, one does not feel like touching it.

I indulge in quick cooking using a lot of vegetables these days as I am surely overwhelmed looking at the variety available and one such vegetable surely is broccoli which has finally come to a rate where common man can buy it easily and use in abundance.

It was quite some time that my family had a baked vegetable so thought of making a baked vegetable using broccoli. A soup, garlic bread and baked vegetable was on the menu. I just loved the idea that my kids would eat so many vegetables.

I made a healthy white sauce to make my baked vegetable, I call this sauce healthy as I used low fat butter, whole wheat flour to make it. Believe me one does not miss out using APF here, I find this sauce quite tasty. I personally love the white sauce less thick, one can make a thicker version. So here goes the recipe..

Ingredients

1/2 large cauliflower separated into florets

1/2 large broccoli separated into florets

a handful of peas

handful of corn

2 tomatoes sliced

mozzarella + cheddar cheese grated

1/2 tsp mustard pwd

1/2 tsp white pepper pwd

1 tbsp chili flakes

1 tsp mixed herbs

4-6 tbsp whole wheat flour

6 tbsp low fat butter

about 2-1/2 cups toned milk

salt to taste

Method

Blanch both the florets in salted water for 2-3 minutes, drain.

Melt the butter and roast the flour without letting the colour change and then gradually add the milk, stirring continuously. Add the mustard powder, mixed herbs, pepper powder and chili flakes. Season with salt. Let the sauce thicken.

Mix the florets into the sauce and also add the peas and corn.

Transfer the contents into a baking dish and layer the top with tomato slices.